


the hardest place to be is right where you are in the space between the finish and the start

by piltovers_finest



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Fluff and Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, happy valentines day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 11:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17786561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piltovers_finest/pseuds/piltovers_finest
Summary: Jayce has a crush on a man whose face he has never seen.





	the hardest place to be is right where you are in the space between the finish and the start

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual, rating chosen for the swears and a tiny hint of spice but nothing serious.

Jayce has a crush on a man whose face he has never seen.

It's as absurd as it's excruciating, even if Vi seems to find it hilarious. As he's told her what feels like a billion times, it's not as if he hasn't tried to see how Viktor looks like. He has, to a point in which he's felt self conscious over his repeated attempts, and to no avail. Be it a welding helmet or a cupboard door, there's always something obscuring Viktor's face.

So he has had time to toy with some ideas. Which Vi also loves to poke fun at, as she is doing right that second sitting on Jayce's workbench as he stares at Viktor's working station. Viktor is, of course, wearing a welding helmet. Because Jayce can't have the satisfaction of seeing his stupid face just once. He isn't asking for much. A mere glimpse would suffice at that point. He tells Vi that much and she snorts.

"Oh, you know it wouldn't," she hands him a wrench, popping a gum bubble. "He isn't bald, at least. Or about to start balding anytime soon, apparently."

Jayce hums as he tries to tighten a screw on what appears to be a very small washing machine, not that he's about to ask Vi what she wants that for, and glances at Viktor briefly. He's currently scratching at the nape of his neck, thick welding gloves and all, and Jayce is a bit mad at him for wearing a stupid welding helmet while only loosely tying his hair back. He's going to set his head on fire.  And even then he'd find a way to keep Jayce away from his face, he's sure.

"Not going bald, no. Driving me mad, that he's doing quite effectively," he mutters and curses because the screw, stubbornly enough, keeps getting loose no matter how hard he tries to tighten it. Jayce maybe has had enough frustration for his entire life. He thinks. He considers. He decides. "Vi whatever the fuck do you even want this stupid machine for?"

"Dragging your sorry ass here so you can ogle whatsisname."

"Viktor."

"What," Viktor says, from across the room, and Vi slaps his back as Jayce starts coughing into the wrench. "Are you okay?"

"He's fine, something must have gone down the wrong pipe," Vi interjects, still slapping Jayce way harder than she needs to even though he's stopped coughing. "Ain't you fucking dandy, Jaycer?"

"Yes, yes I'm fine. I was...wondering if I could use..." Jayce looks around Viktor's station, frantically trying to come up with something to say. Viktor says nothing, and since he's still wearing that stupid welding helmet Jayce has no clue whether or not he's angry. Or surprised. Or thinks that Jayce has lost his mind. "The soldering iron. Later. When you're done."

Viktor cocks his head and hums. "I guess? What's wrong with yours?"

Vi snorts and Jayce elbows her as discreetly as he knows how.

"Nothing. I like that one better."

"...sure. Fine. Suit yourself, I'll be done soon."

That pause doesn't give Jayce much hope in the future as a whole but the situation is...salvaged? He supposes. Since now he has to wait for Viktor to finish up what he's doing and leave. It's, in a way, a nice pleasant afternoon of doing nothing at all but staring at him as he works with Vi commenting into his ear whenever she sees fit. Which isn't too bad, considering that Jayce expects Viktor to takes the helmet off once he's done.

He doesn't.

Viktor just picks his things up, turns on his heel and leaves without a word.

Jayce drags his hands down his face, groaning.

"What is up with him?" Vi says, and Jayce would also like to know. Love to know, even. "Does he sleep with that on?"

"He might."

-x-

Viktor and him don't share any classes. Obviously, since Jayce has never seen his face. They have, nonetheless, talked a lot while they work in the lab and Viktor has a penchant for mocking and taunting Jayce about his ego that makes Jayce feel giddy. Most take issue with the way he carries himself, which he doesn't fault them for, but Viktor seems to have decided that he doesn't care.

He also looks good, as in Jayce thinks that him being tall and lean is hot and it'd be a tragedy amongst tragedies that his face didn't match him. Not in an oops he's ugly way but in an oops who is this person he doesn't sound like this at all way. But if he's to be honest with himself, it's not as if he'd care at that point.

"Excuse me," someone says, behind him as he absent mindedly blocks the cafeteria's exit, and Jayce jumps and coughs out a hurried sorry as he steps aside to make way.

And, alarmingly enough, recognizes Viktor's back after he passes by and leaves the building.

Unmasked.

From where he is, Jayce can only see his hair. He knows his hair, has known it since the dawn of time. Been there, done that. From the deepest recesses of his mind comes a voice that sounds way too much like Vi's to say no, never been there and never done that which is the whole issue here. Jayce decides to ignore it in favor of wallowing in his misery, since the only reason he doesn't know how Viktor's face looks is him being too stupid to turn around.

He does, then, the only thing that makes sense: text Vi.

_Me: i missed his face_

_its vi mf <3: wtf r u ween sayin exlpain_

_Me: he was behind me and he said eXCUSE ME and i let him like pass me or whatever like go i guess and now hes gone nd i casns ee his back but not his face_

_its vi mf <3: you_

_its vi mf <3: you like_

_its vi mf <3: nw his baCKSIDE BUT NOT HIS VOICEEW?_

_Me: don't kinkshame_

_its vi mf <3: i hat u so much_

_its vi mf <3: me @ home: h-_

_my stupod friend jveyce @ som guy: i h8t 2 c u go butt i <3 2 waaath u leve_

_its vi mf <3: ba-by_

_Me: im in pain_

_its vi mf <3: go talk t him_

_its vi mf <3: idiot_

Jayce considers it as he pockets his phone, stubbornly refusing to look up, but by the time he's made up his mind and chances a glance the way he saw Viktor leave he's nowhere to be seen.

-x-

Jayce realizes just how bad he's got it when, after stepping into the lab and catching a glimpse of Viktor in the welding mask, his breathing stutters. That isn't, in and of itself, unusual. As Vi so delicately has put it before, he's got a bad case of the Horny for Viktor. It's fine. He's made his peace with that.

The problem for Jayce is that it isn't Viktor what gets him, it's Viktor in a welding mask as a unit. Which is a completely different beast. Finding Viktor attractive? Fine. Easy. Finding the fact that Viktor's face is obscured hot? Worrisome. Terrifying. Why is this happening to him.

Jayce drags his hands down his face with a drawn out groan.

"Are you okay?" Viktor says, because of course Jayce can recognize his voice when it's muffled by the mask, and Jayce makes a noise that maybe means yes, maybe means he's dying, maybe means both. "You've been acting strange for a while."

"You think?" Jayce asks, but it lacks all the heat it should and Viktor scoffs.

"Is this because of that disagreement we had over free will?"

Jayce wishes it were.

"No, this has nothing to do with how wrong you were," he says, affecting a nonchalant shrug, and Viktor pauses for a beat, drumming his fingers on his workbench, and then starts walking Jayce's way. Oh no. "Are you still hang up over that?"

Viktor stops in front of him, uncomfortably close, and Jayce can smell the fabric softener he uses and metal. He takes a minuscule, discreet, step back.

"In which way is it my fault that you can't see that when free will is jeopardized to begin with nobody would be taking it away?" Jayce crosses his arms behind his back and smiles tersely up at the welding mask, pointedly avoiding to look at Viktor's waist. He's made that mistake before. It's how he lost this exact same argument a week prior, not that he'd ever admit that to Viktor in his life but it's the truth nonetheless. "You let your emotions drive you, it clouds your judgment."

Jayce snorts because really, if only that were true he'd have reached up and lifted that mask months ago.

"Maybe. In any case, the real point to be made is whether we're discussing the moral or ethical aspects of the situation. Morally speaking, it would be heinous to restrict free will in any situation."

Viktor, to Jayce's utter dismay, leans forward. He has no way to know if he notices or not, being that his face is obscured, but Jayce would love to breathe and it's starting to be a challenge. He swallows, looking up and over Viktor's shoulder at somewhere in the middle distance to keep himself distracted. Maybe that way he'll trick himself into numbness.

"And why wouldn't it be equally as heinous to do it from an ethical standpoint?"

"You're arguing against yourself here."

"I am."

Jayce takes a deep breath (a mistake, since now he can smell him), closes his eyes (a big mistake, since now he can feel the heat coming from his body), exhales slowly. Right. Okay. He has to focus for two seconds. Maybe if he leans into it he'll scare Viktor away.

It's worth a try, so Jayce shifts closer to Viktor and looks directly at where he supposes his eyes are. There's no reaction.

"From an ethical standpoint, we should first choose a definition or theory on ethics and go from there. Whether or not it would serve a greater good, or it'd be at the service of subject to subject interaction, or if there is an intrinsic value to it, or if it's what's just. Or any of the many others that we have available. I don't know, pick one."

Viktor leans even closer and plants a hand on the workbench behind Jayce, to his left. This has never happened before and Jayce isn't sure whether or not his plan worked or if Viktor is trying to use the same technique to intimidate him. Tough luck, then. Jayce is mostly slightly panicked and vaguely (extremely) into it so there's that.

"On a level of subject to subject interaction, is it what is right for the other person?"

"Yes, since it'd avoid more harm."

"So I'm right."

"If we choose these specific arguing conditions, yes."

Viktor steps back and Jayce only barely has enough self control not to grab onto his shirt and beg him to get closer. He's so cold and so sad all of a sudden, and Viktor is so far away but it's only two steps, and he can still smell his stupid fabric softener, and he's going to kick himself in the teeth.

"I will concede, though, that you are right about morals," Viktor kind of nods his way before turning and going back to his working station. Jayce refuses to stare at him and turns to his own workbench before he can give in.

-x-

Vi and Jayce are having coffee with Vi's British, posh, girlfriend. They do this at least once a week to get out of campus and live their twenties to their fullest. They sit together at their regular table in their regular café and they have lattes and chat. According to Vi, these outings are the tamest fucking bullshit she's ever witnessed but Caitlyn never complains and Jayce likes the friendliness of it all. And the fact that Caitlyn more often than not takes his side when they discuss things, which Vi argues only happens because they lack common sense ("exhibit a: Caitlyn moved from London to live with me").

"So there I was, knackered out of my mind, thinking to myself well this is just superb, innit? And this blabbering idiot decides to talk to me while I'm absolutely plastered," Jayce stares at Caitlyn as she talks, almost mesmerized but the way her frantic gesturing contrasts her bland expression. "And then he tries to grope me so I kick him and run."

Vi, sitting by Caitlyn's side, gasps. Jayce assumes that she's outraged at what Caitlyn's saying, but then she kicks him under the table and he looks at her and finds that she's looking somewhere over Jayce's left shoulder, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

"What is it? Something the matter?"

"Jayce, please look to where I'm staring at in the most fucking obnoxious way you can right this second."

Puzzled, Jayce turns around and sees a man.

It takes him embarrassingly long, all things considered, to recognize his posture and clothing as Viktor's.

He wasn't going to recognize his face, in any case. His face, that is right there. Uncovered. On full display.

"Oh," he says.

"Yeah, fucking oh," Vi answers, and then they say nothing at all. 

It feels a little dirty, looking at Viktor while unmasked. Forbidden. As if he's not supposed to do it. But it's not as if Jayce's going to turn around now and pretend that he didn't see. Viktor looks tired. His face is longer than he expected, narrow but a bit square. His nose is straight and sticks out. He has the kind of big but half lidded eyes that Jayce doubts can show interest in anything. They're dark, but he's too far to see the exact color. He might just be detached by design, and his eyebrows are slightly curved down in a way that makes him look almost mocking, patronizing. Jayce dreads looking at his lips and has been avoiding it, but there's not really much left to look at and he does and they're thin, pressed together in a grimace.

Jayce keeps looking, and looking, and looking. Scanning his features over and over again with his heart beating in his throat. All his months of longing and picturing different possibilities have come to an end.

"Does he look like you thought he would?" Caitlyn asks, and Jayce shakes his head but dreads looking away so he doesn't.

"Not really? He's..."

"He's unhot," Vi interjects, and Jayce scoffs. "No, but shut up. It fits him. Like he has this vibe, you know? This sorta thing about him, like he's gonna just sit here and tell you about his favorite indie band."

"I don't think he knows what music is."

"Come on, Jaycer. He can't be that much like you."

Caitlyn snorts at that, and Jayce resents her only a little but then he can't even do that because the worst possible thing happens.

Vi leans over the table, cups her hands around her mouth and bellows: "HEY VIKTOR, WATCHA DOING OVER THERE ALL ALONE YOU LOSER? GET YOUR ASS HERE."

Viktor turns to her, eyes wide, and Jayce tries to hide inside his shirt but it isn't working. He's also a twenty-six year old man and it's a very ridiculous thing to do so he stops immediately when Viktor looks at him and his eyebrows rise up to his hairline.

"Oh," he seems to say, just before he starts walking their way

His eyes are brown, Jayce realizes as Viktor sits by his side and Vi almost throws herself over the table to shake his hand with the most enormous grin Jayce's ever seen on her face. Caitlyn is tamer, she waves at him and that's it. Jayce squeaks and then says hi, like a real human being who knows how to interact with their peers would do.

"Hello. I was only going to grab something to go and return to the lab but..." Vi huffs.

"What? No. Shut up. Do you know my girlfriend? She's great. You're great, right, Cait?"

"Sure, hun."

"See? She's great. Jaycer? He's fine, I guess. But Caitlyn? I would die and kill for her."

They start talking. Jayce is distantly aware of that, otherwise busy trying to manage his mortification and the impulse to gawk at Viktor like an idiot. Yet he has to admit that he's amazed at how, in a serendipitous miracle of sorts, he now inhabits a universe in which a certain set of circumstances has created this situation. Jayce, sitting alongside a maskless Viktor as he chats with his friends.

What were the odds.

Jayce, who's brilliant when he isn't distracted by romance if he does say so himself, doesn't need to run any simulations to arrive at the conclusion that they most likely weren't.

"So what's your favorite indie band?" Vi asks Viktor, at some point, and Jayce stares at her in abject horror as Viktor answers that he doesn't really listen to music. At which point Vi turns to Jayce, a smile that spells danger on her face, and says: "Oh you two have so much in common."

And Jayce, as the mature and adult man that he is, gets up and leaves.

-x-

The next time he sees Viktor Jayce is walking down one of the campus' tech buildings corridors and Viktor's face is obscured by the tallest stack of books Jayce has ever seen. That is good for him, being that the instant mortification that accosts him upon recognizing Viktor's voice as he mutters excuse me as he walks is promptly replaced with relief. Maybe that fateful encounter at the café didn't happen at all, and it was nothing  but one of Jayce's fantasies. Only one of the many different iterations of Viktor's face that he's imagined.

Then Viktor peeks around the side of the book pillar and Jayce catches a glimpse of him and all his shame is back with a vengeance because it happened, it was a real situation that took place in Jayce's life.

"Ah, it's you," Viktor says, pausing and Jayce stops walking too because it is, indeed, him. And what is he supposed to do? Sprint down the corridor? Not a bad idea, actually. He is one of the brightest minds of his generation, after all. "You left without paying the other day. Vi footed the bill for you, no big deal."

Viktor wheezes, a little, and Jayce realizes that maybe he could help him. So he steps, hesitantly, closer to him and grabs some of the books. Viktor seems to deflate, heaving a sigh so deep Jayce is mildly concerned he's killed him.

"Thank you. Were you okay? Did something happen?"

Something happened but Jayce can't tell Viktor, who is looking at him with his eyes that Jayce can now see and that are making his skin feel very itchy, that seeing his face was kind of a revelation and Vi being a jackass didn't help calm his emotional panic.

"I was okay. I am okay, right now. Very okay. Are you okay?"

Viktor frowns. "Concerned that you hit your head somewhere."

Jayce laughs, aware of how forced it sounds, and Viktor's frown deepens.

"Where were you going?"

"Pididly's office," the way Viktor says Pididly's name, with utter contempt, always lifts Jayce's spirits. It was one of the things that drew him to Viktor, back when they met, his disregard for academia. "You?"

"Home. I'll help you carry these. Why are you helping him, anyway?" he starts walking and Viktor follows with a huff.

"Not helping, exactly. Giving back everything he lent me in second year."

"Not working with him anymore?"

Viktor laughs, dry. Jayce's breathing stutters.

"Not letting him copy my homework anymore, you mean? Done with that, I'm afraid. How about you and Giopara? That going well?"

"As well as these things can go, I suppose," Viktor keeps bumping into him and Jayce is embarrassed by how distracting that is, and those are two full things that he's processing as they walk. Not much space left for science. Way less for academia. "Hate how this works. This. You know, the whole thing. The thing. It works bad. Wrong. Unethically."

"You sure love to harp on ethics for being such an aesthete," Jayce glances Viktor's way, arching an eyebrow, and then he does bump into Viktor in purpose. Viktor hums, and shrugs. "What? It's true. Take a left here."

He takes a left there while being properly offended.

"An aesthete?"

"You heard me."

"According to who?"

Viktor stops and Jayce sees that they've reached Pididly's office. Having had the opportunity to talk to Viktor, it's kind of a bummer. Viktor, though, doesn't seem in any hurry to knock on that door. He leans against the wall by the door and looks at Jayce.

"According to me, PhD in Jayce Sawyer," Viktor looks away and it's a good thing because he can't see Jayce's ears turn red as Jayce can feel them do. "We do know each other, is the thing."

Jayce snorts. "Are you aware that I saw your face for the first time like two days ago?"

Viktor turns back to him, looking rather puzzles. "Is that right?"

"Yes," Jayce decides that he's going to do something stupid and steps closer to Viktor. Not close enough to get himself into trouble, but closer. Sometimes one has to be an idiot, is what a clever person like him would think. For sure. "You hadn't noticed?"

"Not really, sounds odd. It feels like we spend a lot of time talking."

"Because we do, in the lab, where you wear the helmet."

"Oh."

"Indeed," he has, somehow, ended up standing even closer to Viktor. They are still holding the books, and that is saving him from straight up leaning into Viktor's space, but alas he has gotten himself into trouble. No mask in the way, also. There is a face in front of him, with half-lidded eyes and a straight nose, and thin lips. And he has to deal with that.

Uh oh.

"So back to you being an aesthete obsessed with ethics," Viktor says, staring right into Jayce's eyes, and Jayce's stomach does a funny sort of flip.

"So back to that thing that I am not."

"Yes, that," Jayce is in so much trouble it isn't even funny. He can't laugh this off. Viktor's smiling and he has a kind of tight, reluctant, smile that makes Jayce want to punch himself in the face. And if Jayce didn't think himself delusional he'd swear Viktor had been tilting closer. "Is it even possible to be that? I mean, it is. Since you are here. You exist. But it shouldn't be. Morally, at least."

"What's with you and morals."

"You're the one who brings them up every single time," Jayce, admittedly, is the one who leans ever so slightly closer. Viktor doesn't react. Doesn't even flinch, pause, or stutter. He doesn't tense up, not that Jayce can see. He's there, existing, right by Jayce. A wonder. "What's so bad about being an ethical aesthete, though? Besides it being forbidden and a sin. You can build pretty robots and worry about ethics after you're sure they're aesthetically pleasing."

Having spent a respectable amount of time looking at Viktor's face, in close proximity, almost feeling his breathing on his face, with his own heart beating hard and fast against his ribcage and his skin prickling, Jayce considers it a feat that he doesn't break sooner. But it feels good, as if he's following the flow, the natural progression of things, to lean a little bit further and peck Viktor's lips. Just a second. An indulgence. That he regrets instantly, as he leans back, yet Viktor doesn't look particularly shocked nor upset.

"Sorry?" he tries, and Viktor huffs a laugh.

"For?"

Will the wonders ever end. "Being an ethical aesthete."

Apparently not, because Viktor leans down and kisses him, as briefly and lightly as Jayce did. It still makes Jayce feel. Just feel. Many things. That he will process maybe someday.

"I'm afraid I can't forgive you for that."

The books are the only thing between them still, and even though he was once glad about it now Jayce would love to slam dunk them into Pididly's trash can. They have, nonetheless, all the time in the world. Days, weeks, months, years. Eons. Full of wonders, since they seem to be plentiful. So Jayce kisses Viktor, longer and deeper but never enough, and shrugs.

"I can live with that."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from half·alive's arrow.
> 
> HELLO. So I started writing this maybe a month ago because my good friend Zecoden HEY ZECO THANKS FOR THIS had this idea about Jayce having a crush on Viktor but having never in his life seen his face. And then today, after some writingless days, I said to myself: finish it and publish it you dingdong. So I did. Here it is. 
> 
> I came back and did a quick check on things. All seems good. Maybe a hiccup or too left. Working title was THE REST OF YOUR LIFE in all caps and that amuses me greatly.


End file.
